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Tuesday, August 31, 2010

The hapless nitwits at rabble.ca are quaking with fear about something. The advancement of peace talks in the middle east brokered by the hated Americans? The public's ongoing rejection of "Proportional Representation" which is the best hope for loser parties like the NDP to achieve some national influence?

"The prime minister's office. In a first-world democracy. Controlling a major media network. We did not make this up."

Unlike the ephemeral "soldiers with guns in our streets," we have the very real and menacing prospect of a major national media chain being bulldozed into a blatant propaganda tool by and for the party in power.

"There's been a tendency in the Canadian media to dismiss the threat of a Fox News transplant on the grounds Canadians wouldn't fall for that sort of nasty, right-wing extremism," she[Linda McQuaig] writes. "But that comforting notion may be naïve." Most people don't have time to follow politics in detail, she continues. "If they hear constant sound bites suggesting global warming is a hoax or public health care just doesn't work, after a while the message starts to seem believable."

And further along...

She points out the media already blasts Canadians with a steady chorus of right-wing ideas. "A Fox-style network here - if Harper gets his way - would turn that into a deafening cacophony."

It all makes soldiers with guns on Canada's streets more plausible with every passing day.

I don't know what Linda McQuaig is mainlining, but it's doing strange things to her brain. The Toronto Star is the largest-circulation daily in Canada. The Globe and Mail, which simultaneously, along with rabble, publishes Rick Salutin is the next largest. And then there's TheCB frikin' C. This is "a steady chorus of right-wing ideas"!?

Being continually marginalized at the fringes of society must be terrifying enough for the rabbleoids. Toronto is on the verge of throwing out a socialist city council and voting in fiscally-conservative Rob Ford. Stephen Harper has been Prime Minister for 4 years, being the most popular national party in the last 2 elections and the NDP has made zero headway, despite the Looney Left's all-out efforts.

And here comes another network that takes a different ideological position to rabble's and isn't going to be financed by Syd Ryan! How dare we have a marketplace of ideas and a free press that doesn't enforce only the ideologically approved dogma of the 3 witches (Judy Rebick/Naomi Klein/Libby Davies)!?

Amnesty International has been the target of accusations of anti-Semitism and an obsessive focus on Israel. Accusations which that organization has consistently, if unconvincingly, denied.

Putting an end to all plausibility of these denials, the head of Amnesty International’s Finnish branch, Frank Johansson, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that he stands by his statement that Israel is a “scum state.”

"No one expected every Catholic in Massachusetts to denounce terrorism each time the IRA blew up an office tower in London or a school in Ulster in the 1980s. Perhaps Massachusetts Catholics should have been asked to denounce terrorism more often. After all, North American Catholics — particularly those in the U.S. Northeast — were a significant source of funding for the IRA for decades. But the point is, they weren’t expected to, so why should Muslims?

Sheer volume, for one.As Clifford D. May, president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, reminded us last Friday, “there have been close to 16,000 terrorist attacks carried out in the name of Islam since 9/11.” If Catholics worldwide had committed 16,000 terror acts in the past nine years, I would think it only fair that the Vatican be made to denounce terror over and over again."

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Look at the opening paragraphs below. They read as if they came from a column in The National Post, but no, they're from today's Toronto Star! First they tried persuasion, then smears, sabotage and finally hysterics, but now the newspaper that is on a slower learning curve than the rest of Toronto finally appears to have conceded the obvious.

Torontonians are sick of having been taken for a ride for the last 7 years by David Miller and his cronies and are going to vote Rob Ford into office in the October election.

Rob Ford isn’t typically the popular guy at city council meetings, but with the right-wing writing on the wall, the race to capture the possible mayor-in-waiting’s affection has begun.

Publicly, his fellow councillors have softened their criticisms. Privately, they have begun lobbying for powerful roles in a Ford administration.

An Ipsos Reid poll released earlier this week shows the Etobicoke councillor with double-digit leads over former frontrunner George Smitherman. An internal poll from his camp shows Ford up by 15 points.

“And the faster Ford climbs in the polls, the faster people climb on his back for the ride,” said Councillor Brian Ashton.

The next time you hear about The Sea Hitler, remember who it is they're sailing to help:

On June 14, Palestinian terrorists opened fire on a police car travelling on a road, en route from Beersheba to Jerusalem. One policeman, Yeheshua Sofer was killed. Two others were wounded. Sofer was due to be married in three months. It took a month but members of the cell were finally captured. They spoke quite freely about this attack and others they had planned for killing Israelis.

During the interrogation, one of the leaders remarked that only two weeks earlier his six-year-old daughter had been given a free operation in Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem to remove a tumor from her eye. The operation had been paid for by an Israeli organization.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

It must be very frustrating for Toronto's socialists. They are convinced they are so much smarter and more sophisticated than the rest of us, yet they can't muster the intellect to make as persuasive a case to the voters as Rob Ford has done.

Why aren't people listening to the Left that wants us to vote for Joe Pantalone? It couldn't possibly be that they aren't our intellectual superiors. So how to explain the phenomenon? Heather Mallick at the Star has come up with the answer: It must be that everyone else is crazy!

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Anyone who still doubts Jason Kenney's assertion that, "so much of the criticism Israel faces is motivated by a dangerous form of anti-Semitism that tries to hide behind anti-Zionism and is represented by a coalition of the far left in the West with extreme currents of jihadi Islam" need only look to the pages of The Rotting HorsefleshThe Canadian Charger to see it proved true. That magazine, founded by the notorious former head of the Canadian Islamic Congress, Mohamed "Elmo" Elmasry, is a mirror reflection of the radical leftist rabble.ca which touts Marxism with an Islamist tilt. The Canadian Charger's approach is as an Islamist mouthpiece with a bit of Marxist flavour.

One slight difference between rabble and the Horseflesh is that while rabble is, in the best traditions of the Canadian Marxist movement, utterly devoid of humor or wit, the Horseflesh at least makes a stab at levity.

The Horseflesh did a recent profile of an Egyptian-Canadian comedian. I hope for his sake, the comedian is funnier than the profile reflects. Reuel S. Amdur, who authored it, has less jocularity than the cartoon Family Guy's wet blanket, Buzz Killington.

"Unfortunately, hugging and kissing young children (other than one’s own) is looked upon with suspicion"Mohamed Elmasry in The Canadian Charger

But don't get dismayed, jovial jihadis. It's not like there is only one person trying their hand at amusement on the Horseflesh's pages. None other than Mohamed Elmasry himself has provided his readers with non-stop laughs with his recent essay, entitled "Beauty and love are disappearing from our lives."

I assume Elmo was trying to be funny when he writes, "In Western culture, it is acceptable to hug and kiss between opposite sexes, but not openly between those of the same sex. Unfortunately, hugging and kissing young children (other than one’s own) is looked upon with suspicion."

He must have been imagining a comedy skit called Elmo the Pedo, where he runs around "hugging and kissing young children (other than one's own)," and trouble and hilarity ensue. Is this his idea for a pilot for a show called Saturday Night Live from Mecca? Little Mosque on the Ground Zero? Or maybe Medina, the other Second City?

Somebody needs to update Elmo about what's acceptable in Western Culture though. It is acceptable for people of the same sex to openly hug and kiss. It's death by hanging in Iran. Elmo must have fumbled his way through our immigration requirements before the most recent version of Canada's citizenship guide came out.

Although Elmo never actually clarifies which gender of child other than one's own he's interested in hugging and kissing, he is right; it generally isn't acceptable for old, bearded men who aren't Santa Claus to hug and kiss other people's children. If he's interested in changing that, there's a group called NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association) which will help him lobby for that cause.

But I could be misinterpreting. Elmo isn't talking just about love between grown-ups and children. He wants the world to be one big happy non-Jewish love fest. And how do you do that? Why, you condemn things that people enjoy as part of their culture, of course!

You ban Sumo wrestling in Japan (Elmo: "In Japan, individual Sumo wrestlers are fed far beyond the needs of several normal human beings and inevitably die of obesity-related ailments at a young age.")

Elmo demonstrated his advanced sense of irony by writing in a Canadian magazine, that our national pastime is some sort of bloodsport comparable to Mixed Martial Arts, but worse! (Elmo: "In Canada, hockey players seem to do more on-ice fighting than playing and sometimes the final score is death.")

You ban female mud wrestling, because, of course, those two women writhing around in bikinis in mud, falling over each other, must be doing it because of some personal animosity they have for each other or just the desire to inspire repulsion, (Elmo: " in another dubious “sport,” women wrestle one another in a muddy arena with little point to the exercise but the grossness of it all").

And in a comedic tour de force, Elmo offers this hysterical parody of a raving lunatic: "Stores may sell numerous beauty products today, but where could you ever buy the Beauty of the Divine? We have all but lost our human spiritual receptors to appreciate Divine beauty. At home and school our children are rarely exposed to the essential twin values of beauty and love."

You're a riot, Elmo! No more beauty and love in Canadian homes and schools!

Well, maybe not the homes that froth at the mouth with lust for the blood of Israelis. And it's hard to gauge beauty under a burka, but these are minor points. What's important is that Elmo has, in his own very small way, shown that he may possess the capabilities of looking at the lighter side of life. That could be the first step towards ending the bitterness which I assume is what has been motivating him for so long.

That's got to be what's happening, isn't it? I mean, he couldn't possibly have been serious, could he?

Monday, August 23, 2010

This happened in an east end Toronto neighbourhood. It's too bad this had to go on for 7 years before the neighbors finally got fed up.

The person who posted the video described it as follows:

"This is a group from a church at the end of my street. Apparently they have been grouping in front of a gay couple's house and reading their bible loudly for the past 7 years. They may have also driven a lesbian couple from the area as well by doing the same thing. Tonight most of our neighbours came out and were successful in getting them to leave"

Head of Turkish "charity" IHH:"We will exercise our right to passive resistance and throw them from the ship"

This controversial BBC documentary has inspired a flood of complaints from the anti-Israel lobby because it tells the truth about what happened on the Mavi Marmara and the truth is not favourable to Turkey, the "Free Gaza Movement" and the so-called "peace activists" who were in fact self-professed "martyrs."

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Yesterday, I attended a barbecue with a number of friends and family. It was a group of people from different backgrounds and of varied economic status ranging in age from their thirties to their sixties. Some of these people were multi-generational Canadians and others were the first generation children of immigrants.

It had been overcast all morning with the grey skies seeming to hold the perpetual promise of rain, which by mid-afternoon, delivered on that promise. We gathered under a canopy watching the barbecuer-in-chief deal with the cooking, and all of us imbibing beer and liquor and conversing.

Eventually, the conversation turned to the municipal election. While the things my friends said may be apocryphal, given that this gathering was a seemingly representative microcosm of Toronto's citizenry, it also seemed instructive.

Almost to a person, everyone at that barbecue said they planned to vote for Rob Ford.

A phenomenon that has set the media's head spinning lately, particularly at the Toronto Star, is how after what seems to be fatal foible after fatal foible, Rob Ford's popularity has not diminished. It has in fact increased to the point where he far-and-away the front runner in the upcoming municipal election.

Ford's growing popularity amid The Star's attempts to sink him reminds me of the line Obi Wan Kenobi said to Darth Vader during their duel in Star Wars: A New Hope.

Alec Guiness, playing Kenobi, said: "You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."

While columnists and writers in the Globe and Mail have launched scathing personal attacks against Ford, the Toronto Star has been unrelenting in its vicious onslaught. The Star has gone to the point of printing stories that border on slander, such as their demonstrably false report that Ford physically assaulted a high school football player he was coaching.

While the editorial boards at the Star and Globe, whose arrogant views of their self-importance and influence must be reeling at how their all-out attempts to sink Ford have failed, what must be bothering them even more is the mystery of "why?"

Some columnists have already printed their own theories about the phenomenon of Ford's resilience, and some, like The Sun's Joe Wormington's recent coulmn, reflected some of what was said to me at the barbecue. It seems the media's 'piling on' of Ford about trivial matters while ignoring more serious transgressions by his rivals reflects a panic from the status quo at the prospect that waste and influence by special interests at city hall is in jeopardy.

The quartet of Smitherman, Rossi, Thompson and Panatlone all represented, as far as my friends were concerned, the status quo. And despite the quartet's insistence that they would change things, no one I spoke with yesterday believed them, while they did believe Ford. Why? Because Ford, through his whole career, has campaigned against waste in government, whereas the 2 members of the quartet who have been in elected office are firmly associated with wasteful spending.

Another component of Ford's popularity is his personality. Ford seems like a "real guy," the sort of person you could have a beer with. None of the quartet have been able to convey that convincingly.

And most tellingly, Ford impressed the people I spoke to as someone who is sincere. Ford carries himself as someone who says what he thinks. Sure, that means he says inopportune things from time-to-time. But that makes him a real person. And Ford will say how he feels regardless of who it offends, which as potentially damaging politically as it may be, suggests a refreshing honesty in a politician. In contrast, the quartet all came across as opportunists who are more likely to say something that they think will serve their political purposes than they would be likely to tell the truth.

-- --- --- ---- ---- --- --- ----

No issue made this more clear than reaction to Ford's comments about immigration that were spurred by the controversial arrival of a boatload of Tamil migrants. When Ford said this city can't afford to take in more people when we can't even take care of those already here, he was saying something that most people understand to be true. Sensing an opportunity to paint Ford in the light as "anti-immigration" and even "racist" the quartet piled on like hyenas.

The quartet couldn't have made a worse move. People who have come to Canada legally resent illegal migrants who circumvent the regulations complied with by and stringent efforts of honest immigrants more than anyone else. And nothing has made the dishonesty of Ford's opponents more clear than the accusation of "racism." There was no racial reference or implication to anything Ford said about Toronto's ability to care for its own. Toronto is the most diverse city in the world and "Toronto's own" includes people from every racial and cultural background on earth.

What may have sealed the deal for Ford is the recent revelation that 71% of Tamil "refugees" have returned to Sri Lanka on vacations since they came to Canada. What could be clearer proof that the immigration system and Canada's good graces are getting bilked? You don't go back to a country for a vacation if you are being persecuted there and your life is at risk.

The other factor that Ford stood alone against in the face of attack from the Quartet was his commitment to eliminate the city's "Fair Wage" policy which enforces union pay rates equalling municipal pay rates to outside contractors who make tenders to the City. Anyone can see through this. It costs the city tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars. It eliminates much of the very reason and all of the savings the city could gain from outside tenders.

Who benefits from this policy is clear: Unions. The same unions that incumbent mayor David Miller is perceived as being beholden to. The same unions that the Quartet is trying to curry support from. What was telling was that even union people I spoke to were in favor of Ford's "Fair Wage" policy position.

Because only some people in some unions gain from the "fair wage" policy, particularly CUPE, which is fearful of competition and the pressure that getting outside sources to do the same or better jobs at cheaper rates would bring.

The union members I spoke to supported Ford because they don't identify themselves as being unionist before they do as being Torontonians and taxpayers. They don't want the next mayor to be a wasteful spender in the pocket of CUPE any more than anyone else outside of CUPE.

So, it seems to me that, no matter how hard the Toronto Star and the Status Quo Quartet may try, as long as Rob Ford keeps being Rob Ford, his momentum to the mayor's office is probably unstoppable.

UPDATE: AUGUST 23: An Ipsos Reid poll taken over the wekend shows Ford as the clear front runner with an 11 point lead over nearest rival, George Smitherman.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

The film The Last Exorcism has one of the best ever Internet campaigns going by luring unsuspecting victims on the site ChatRoulette, where people (predominantly male) anonymously pair up via webcam, generally to expose themselves. Some boys must have thought they hit the jackpot when they found themselves looking at a an attractive brunette, seemingly in real time. She smiles seductively and tantalizingly starts to undo her lacy top when..her eyes roll back in her head, which starts to contort Linda Blair-style and she ferociously attacks the camera.

The young men watching live on the other side of the connection are, to say the least, taken by surprise.

The politburo running the Canadian Union of Postal Workers are big supporters of The Sea Hitler, the boat the Canadian enablers of terror hope to use to break Israel's blockade of Gaza designed to keep out Iranian arms shipments.

As reported on the neo-Marxist website, rabble.ca:

CUPW called on Canadians to back efforts to break the siege by sending their Gaza-bound mail via the Canadian Boat to Gaza. The Canadian Boat to Gaza is urging those who wish to break this ban to send with us postcards with messages of support to the besieged strip. Article 25 of the fourth Geneva Convention guarantees the right to personal correspondence with family members under occupation.

"As postal workers, we know very well that cutting off mail creates suffering and hardship for people, who are isolated from their loved ones," said Denis Lemelin, National President of CUPW. "How many more abuses will the people of Gaza have to endure?"

Lemelin omitted that as postal workers, they're evidently too stupid to figure out how to turn on a computer and send an email. But that's another matter.

If Syd Ryan's CUPE and the CUPW pony up $300,000 worth of union dues from the unsuspecting dupes they are supposed to be representing in labour matters unrelated to international conflicts, The Sea Hitler may sail and they can carry your message of support.

This is too good an opportunity to be missed. Send a postcard to the address below and let Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas Prime Minister in Gaza, that he's a disgusting terrorist who becomes aroused at the site of a sow's behind. Make up your own message.

The Canadian Boat to Gaza is eager to carry mail to Gaza if the ban is not lifted soon" said Sandra Ruch, spokesperson for the Canadian Boat to Gaza. "We will make every effort to deliver any mail we get to the postal authorities in Gaza. We ask senders to limit mail they send us to unsealed postcards of greeting and support to loved ones keeping in mind that it, as well as the rest of our cargo, may end up in Israeli hands if our boat is pirated."

While Sandra Ruch may lack the intelligence to comprehend the meaning of words she uses, like "pirated", her point is well taken. Send your message of support. preferably in Arabic or Hebrew, to this address. I'm sure it will be appreciated:

Heck, Giambrone billed the taxpayer double that — $6,299.50 to be precise — for his private French lessons.

No integrity problems there it seems.

Now if Ford had spent $12,000 of taxpayers’ money for a posh luncheon with his friends and fellow freeloaders as Councillor Kyle Rae did, maybe they’d have thrown another party — and bill it, of course, to the taxpayers.

Or the $8,462.39 billed to the taxpayer for Kyle to go on holiday (AIDS conference) to Vienna, Austria — quite a bit more than last year’s sojourn to Mexico that cost us $5,368.77.

Never mind the $65,000 spent of our money for destroying Jarvis St. to get moms and dads home 20 minutes later to their kids to accommodate Rae and Mayor David Miller’s 27 bicycle friends.

No this investigation is focusing on $50 donations for football equipment and one donation for $400 from a good Samaritan company that could surely find more effective ways to gain favour at City Hall than to publicly support a local sports program.

George Smitherman discussed the issue, accusing Rob Ford of wanting Toronto to become a refugee-free-zone, something Ford didn't deny.

"I have to say I was very shocked when I heard councillor Ford say Toronto should be a refugee-free zone," Smitherman says.

However, Ford shot back saying Toronto can't support more.

"We can't even take care of our 2.5 million people," says Ford. "I think it's important that we take care of the people now before we start bringing in more."

According to a recent poll, it turn out 60% of Canadians not only agree with Ford but would take matters even further and have returned the ship of Tamil refugees that arrived in Vancouver back to Sri Lanka.

The Quartet of Fools (Smitherman, Rossi, Thompson and Pantalone) and their histrionic flacks in the media were anxious to pounce upon this as some sort of general anti-immigrant or even racist sentiment, but obviously, Toronto's voters aren't buying that desperate, disingenuous spin.

It’s just possible that, as Canadians become increasingly familiar with how easy it is to take advantage of the country’s good intentions, they become equally reluctant to play the rube. It should be no surprise that suspicion of immigrants is high among recent immigrants, since many — having worked their way through the complex, convoluted system — appreciate just how difficult and perverse the process is, and how great the temptation to look for loopholes. Since many immigrants are still trying to bring over members of extended families, they have an interest in ensuring the system works as fairly as possible. Many also come from countries where the rule of law is not exactly No. 1 on the national priority list, and are wary of taking anyone’s story at face value.

Which doesn’t mean they hate Tamils. What it does mean is that Canadians have grown extremely distrustful of the immigration and refugee system, and of the politicians who set the rules.

What the Quartet of Fools have attempted is the cheapest gimmick out of a con artist's bag of tricks: "Don't believe your eyes or ears or what you know to be true, believe me."

The polls show that Canadians are tired of politicians telling them how they should think and want to be represented by someone who cares about what their constituents DO think.

Support for Ford is wide and deep and comes from every community in the city (with the exception of the Marxists, but they are more of a conspiracy than a community)

Thursday, August 19, 2010

In politics, you're never doing badly when your rivals spend more time talking about you than they do about their own policies.

The new "scandal" that Rob Ford's desperate rivals have managed to dig up about the front running candidate in Toronto's mayoral contest involves an 11 year old uncontested DUI charge and a dropped marijuana possession charge that happened in Florida.

The only trouble Ford may have with this is that he was evasive before finally admitting to these matters which are totally irrelevant to his ability to lead Toronto as mayor.

I really don't think Ford's in any trouble. He's the front-runner so all the long knives are coming out from everyone else. But this may actually be helping Ford.

1) this hysteria over trivial nonsense shows how petty and desperate his rivals have become

2) It makes Ford stand out as the only candidate that has ideas that vary from the others. I saw the Tuesday night debate and on just about every issue, it was Ford taking one position and the 4 others taking the opposite.

Only one candidate has been able to differentiate himself from the others and that's Ford.

One indication of what the city would become is all of Ford's rivals opposition to his proposal to eliminate Toronto's "Fair Wage" policy. This rule, which Ford terms "Unfair Wage Policy," forces employers who win city contracts up for tender to pay their employees at the same rate for city jobs. This drives the costs of these tenders to the city up by tens of millions of dollars and removes the competitiveness that is one of the main points of tendering contracts.

The "Fair Wage" policy is good for unions but bad for the city. That the other candidates are afraid to oppose it shows that they are beholden to the unions. And his willingness to take it on shows how Ford is not.

Toronto had a union-controlled mayor for the last 6 years and that didn't turn out very well. In October, Ford's rivals are going to hope voters are bothered more by an 11 year old joint than hundreds of millions of wasted tax dollars that career politicians have cost us in pandering to special interests. And the media hatchet-jobs by intellectual pipsqueaks who have a vested interest in condo development make Ford's supporters even more committed to him.

The Toronto Sun broke this story and comments on it are so enormously in favour of Ford that the Sun has done something I've never seen them do before. They've shut down the comments on the Ford story.

According to CTV news: 11 people were taken into custody. Two were released shortly afterwards while the remaining activists remained in custody overnight."A small group of OCAP members forced their way into the offices and refused to leave," police said in a news release. Nine people between the ages of 23 and 64 were arrested and charged with mischief interfering with property and forcible entry.

The two people taken into custody and released were Anne Abbott, who uses a wheelchair, and her communication assistant, Lenny Olin. With the exception of Abbott and Olin, the protesters were held overnight because each accused person would need to line up a surety to put up money for them.

Two other individuals involved in the protest -- Anne Abbott who uses a wheelchair and her communication assistant, Lenny Olin -- were subjected to radically different treatment. At the protest, it was reported that the police declared their intention to arrest Lenny and 'drop Anne off at a hospital'. When this was obviously strongly objected to by Abbott, they decided to give them both summonses to appear in court for trespass and, eventually, released them.

Now you'd normally think most people would be happy about not having to spend the night in jail. But not Ms. Abbott. Rabble reports the following statement from Anne Abbott:

"They questioned everybody except me, and I felt they thought I was incapable of giving any valid information. With the examples of the abuse on disabled people during the g20 and my recent experience, it's obvious that ableism is running rampant through the Toronto police."

Right. The evil Toronto police are practicing discriminatory "ableism" by not throwing her in jail.

David Harsanyi provides the best analysis I've read so far on the Ground Zero Mosque controversy.

From Reason.com

Here's an excerpt:

There are those who continue to make the facile claim that any protest over Park51 is a display in un-American intolerance and contempt for the Constitution. This position treats criticism of faith—religious institutions and symbols included—as tantamount to "bigotry."

Given that there remains overwhelming opposition to the ground zero mosque, this viewpoint would mean that 70 percent of Americans are impulsively hostile to freedom of religion and irrationally narrow-minded.

Could be. Or, maybe a few of these folks believe the First Amendment features more than one clause. Even a newfound reverence for religious liberty on the left does not negate our right to protest and criticize the philosophical disposition of others. And applying public pressure in an effort to shut down a project is as American as protesting the arrival of a new Wal-Mart. Religious institutions, as far as I can tell, are not exempted from these disputes.

In 2008, thousands of gay-rights activists protested the Mormon temple in Westwood, Calif., for its role in passing Proposition 8—the ban on same-sex marriage. This grew into a national protest to undermine the influence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—even though not every Mormon was involved.

I don't recall anti-Mormon protesters being referred to as bigots for targeting religion..

Tibi is the current Deputy Speaker of the Israeli parliament (Knesset). Perhaps this graduate of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem can talk about how the country where he holds one of the most important elected offices is a racist, apartheid regime just like South Africa..but worse!

But with three quarters of all immigrants going to Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal and most of those coming to Toronto, there needs to be a coordinated policy between federal, municipal and provincial governments about where refugees and immigrants settle. Municipal infrastructure simply can't handle this influx and how to deal with it needs to be addressed and discussed.

Smitherman, Rossi and Pantalone are going to be exploitative and cynical and frankly COWARDLY in their response to this, but none of that trio actually have any workable ideas about it.

Ford and I discussed this very matter in this interview, but at that time he felt it wasn't appropriate to introduce it to the mayoral campaign. But with the recent arrival of a boatload of illegal Tamil immigrants, and the possibility of more to come, the issue is one that requires public debate.

Ford is raising an important issue that his gutless rivals are avoiding. This city needs a mayor with integrity and one who isn't afraid to tell the truth.

He's smug, he's anti-capitalist, he's anti-America and he seems to think he's smart. Unfortunately for Mr. Naomi Klein, he isn't bright enough to realize that he's being made a fool of by his interviewees.

These interviews are about 3 years old now but worth revisiting.

This interview Lewis did with Ayaan Hirsi Ali earned Lewis such contempt and ridicule, it may have single-handedly have been responsible for Lewis' move out of mainstream media over to his new career at his natural spiritual home at Al Jazeera. It is the most glaring example of ignorance, hubris and stupidity from a member of the news media I have ever witnessed.

Blazing Cat Fur did this media round-up of reaction to this interview. All of it unfavourable to Lewis and laudatory of Hirsi Ali.

I couldn't help but hope that Mr. and Mrs. Klein get a chance to watch this video - it'll send their blood pressure skyrocketing:

Well, the old spoil-sports took down all of our pithy suggestions for the dinghy that Ali Mallah, our old friend Kevin "the Liar" Neish and rabble.ca.'s Kim Elliott want to send to Gaza. The new list is all committee approved before it gets to their website and hasn't grown since we had our fun with them.

But..they are using a twitter application called backtype that allows them to keep track every time their site is mentioned. So if you have a twitter account just suggest a name and add this URL (http://canadaboatgaza.org/cms/sites/cbg/en/suggest-name.aspx) to the tweet, and they'll get to see your idea.

I've already contributed The Sea Hitler and The Mavi Masturbaters to what I'm sure will be an amusing new selection. New contributions include, The Hamas Butt Buoy, The Iranian Arms Express, The Floating Turd, The SS Terror Accomplice and Canadian Insanity Contingent. Keep 'em coming!

UPDATE: I'm pleased to report that while it seems to take a while, these tweets are making it to the main Gaza Boat naming page through the backtype application. "The Sea Hitler" has made it back to their sorry collective consciousness again!

UPDATE September 22: The spoil-sports evidently got tired of seeing their tub being dubbed as "The Sea Hitler" and "The SS John Greyson's Gerbil" among others and removed the Backtype application.

This front for Jew-hatred and suppression of free speech in the name of "progressiveness" was founded by none other than Mohammed Elmasry, the proponent of killing all Jews in Israel.

Here's a video made by one of the correspondents for The Rotting Horseflesh. In it, this weasel who in a column gloated about his intellectual superior, Christopher Hitchens falling victim to cancer, here harasses a CBC correspondent about their "covering up what happened" on 9-11. The woman clearly thinks he's a nutcase and tries to deflect him by saying the CBC should undertake lots of investigations but can't afford to because of funding cuts. Of course, this is further proof that the Canadian government is involved in the 9-11 cover-up! (And check out how he claims Michael Moore is part of it!)

The Lake Urmia in Iran's West Azarbaijan province has turned red as the result of an environmental phenomenon known as the "red tide." Soap-like foam substance produced by algae started to redden Orumieh from the East Azarbaijan coast and gradually covered the whole lake.

The "red tide" is actually the result of an algal bloom, an event in which marine or fresh water algae accumulate rapidly in the water.

The effect of excessive algae on fish can be lethal. It produces oxygen radicals which can damage fish gills, possibly leading to suffocation.

Some environmentalists say the phenomenon is caused by nutrient loading from human activities or industrial and city wastewater which include nitrates and phosphates.

Other experts, however, say the algae cannot survive in the salty water of the Lake Urmia and a possible change in the salt compounds might have caused the incident.

“When the salinity reaches the point of oversaturation, the salt compounds change,” environmentalist Masoud Baqerzadeh-Karimi told Mehr News Agency. “The change causes some types of salts, especially those with sodium compounds and white crystals, settle down and those with magnesium and orange crystals remain in the water,” he added.

Baqerzadeh-Karimi rejected the role of wastewater in the phenomenon, saying that in that case “the lake should have turned red many years ago.”

Head of West Azarbaijan environment department Hassan Abbasnejad believes a type of algae is responsible for the incident.

“Dunaliella Salina is a type of algae that creates a red substance in order to adapt to salty environments and survive,” he explained. The world's second largest salt water lake on earth, the Lake Urmia has faced a lot of environmental problems during the last few years.

Experts have warned that ecological factors and human activity will lead to the drying up of Lake Urmia in the near future. The maximum depth of the lake has fallen from 12 to six meters and salt levels have reached 340 grams per liter, way above the standard level of 180 to 220 grams per liter.

The water body and its surroundings are home to some 212 species of birds, 41 reptiles, 7 amphibians, and 27 mammals, including the Iranian yellow deer.

It is considered to be one of the largest natural habitats for the tiny Artemia, which serves as a food source for migratory birds, such as flamingos. UNESCO has registered the lake as a Biosphere Reserve and it is listed as a wetland of international importance under the 1971 Ramsar Convention.

Noam Chomsky must have taken a lot of flack from his regressive allies about a perceived endorsement of pornography by his giving an interview to Hustler magazine in 2004.

Chomsky came out with this after-the fact video in which he claims he "never heard of (sic) the Hustler" though he agreed to being interviewed for it.

Now, some people might not take Chomsky's word on this. Some people might think he's such an incredible media whore that he'd gladly appear anywhere we he could get attention and promulgate his conspiracy theories. They might think he's only backtracking, lying and weaseling out of what he did when the angry leftists of yesteryear took offense at their deity being associated with one of the most graphic, exploitative pornography magazines.

Billions wouldn't, but I for one am prepared to take Chomsky at his word.

If he's not lying, it means he never heard of or saw Milos Foreman's 1996 hit movie, The People Vs Larry Flynt, that received Academy Award nominations for Best Actor and Best Director.

It means he never heard of that famous and notorious American magazine, its publisher who survived an assassination attempt that received enormous publicity. He'd never heard of the many news stories about the prosecutions of Flynt and the famous, precedent-setting US Supreme Court decision involving Hustler, Flynt, Moral Majority Founder Jerry Falwell and the protection of First Amendment rights that case enshrined.

If he's not lying, it means he didn't even bother to do the rudimentary due-diligence of a google search of Hustler Magazine to find out by whom he had agreed to be published.

Chomsky very well may be telling the truth.

Because if he's telling the truth, it shows how out of touch Chomsky is, his lack of intellectual rigour, and demonstrates his inattentiveness to basic fact and detail.

That I can believe.

You can see Chomsky talking about it in this video:

Here's Stewie Griffin finding a copy of Hustler. I think it's the one with the Chomsky interview:

Monday, August 16, 2010

Blazing Cat Fur got this report of how someone at the Toronto Star altered front-running Toronto Mayoral candidate Rob Ford's wikipedia entry to include a link to a satirical blog that took rather vicious, if occasionally funny, pokes at the politician.

Ford already commented in an interview with Eye on A Crazy Planet that "the Star is not a fan" of his. You weren't kidding about that, were you, Rob?

UPDATE: 2:40 PM Aug 17 - Blazing Cat Fur has a number of updates, including that The Star is now offering the defense that the "computer is owned by a Parent company but is not owned by the Toronto Star." Um..so a higher-up at The Star's corporate parent has it in for Rob Ford? That explains a lot.

Ford's lawyer sent a Cease and Desist letter to the anonymous blogger behind the satirical robfordmayor.com, and fearing litigation, he removed the content and replaced it with an apology.

Oliver Ogilvie (an internet pseudonym; he wouldn't disclose his real name) owns RobFordMayor.com—a self-described "low grade satire" site that mocked the eponymous city councillor and mayoral candidate. This week, Ogilvie received a cease-and-desist order from Ford's lawyers, which we've since obtained ourselves....The letter accuses Ogilvie of trademark infringement, and then demands that he immediately remove "all material" from RobFordMayor.com, and that he issue an "unqualified apology" to Ford. Ogilvie did these things (the apology is now posted on the front page of the site), but Google's cache still has a copy of RobFordMayor.com's original content. (We also have a backup copy ourselves.)

Ogilvie, who describes himself as a twenty-eight year-old professional from Toronto, says the blog was his way of entertaining himself online, and also a vehicle for taking jabs at Ford, whose public persona he dislikes. "It's stupid and it's fun. And it was a joke," he said. "I'm surprised that it was taken seriously by his team in itself."

"It's just something that I find kind of funny," he said. "I have several blogs of a similar nature," including IgorKenk.com and MelLastman.com.

I have been advised by Harvard that the decision of The Harvard's Management Company to sell stocks in Israeli companies reflected the good news that Israel is no longer considered an "emerging" economy, but has been promoted to the status of a "developed" economy. As a result of this promotion, the Harvard Management Company could no longer hold Israeli stocks in its "emerging" nation's portfolio. I am told that Harvard continues to hold Israeli stocks in its "developed" nation's portfolio. The end result may well be that Harvard will have greater rather than lesser holdings of Israeli stocks. No one should misinterpret this purely economic decision as support for any form of divestment against Israel. Indeed, Harvard has publicly committed itself not to divest from Israel and not to participate in any campaign of boycotting the Jewish nation.

There will be some irresponsible anti-Israel extremists who will try to portray this technical economic decision as an attack against Israel. Shame on them. They will continue to lose their credibility among all reasonable and objective people if they try to take political advantage of this purely technical decision.

Professor Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He has also published more than 100 articles in magazines and journals such as The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post. The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, The Nation, Commentary, Saturday Review, The Harvard Law Review and the Yale Law Journal, and more than 300 of his articles have appeared in syndication in 50 national daily newspapers. Professor Dershowitz is the author of 27 fiction and non-fiction works with a worldwide audience. His most recent titles include Rights From Wrong, The Case For Israel, The Case For Peace, Blasphemy: How the Religious Right is Hijacking the Declaration of Independence, Preemption: A Knife that Cuts Both Ways, Finding Jefferson – A Lost Letter, A Remarkable Discovery, and The First Amendment In An Age of Terrorism, and The Case For Moral Clarity: Israel, Hamas and Gaza.

The Israeli Business Magazine Globes reported yesterday that The Harvard University Fund, which manages Harvard's investments, liquidated all its Israeli stocks in the last quarter of 2010. It was done without any announcement and there was concern that it might have been a result of a movement to boycott and divest from Israel.

It turns out the report was inaccurate in a number of ways.

Harvard did not liquidate all Israeli stocks, just the majority. It was an economic decision based, in all likelihood, on Israel's upgrade to a "Developed" economy from an "emerging" one.

Harvard Management Company spokesman John Longbrake has issued the following statement:

The Management Company's most recent SEC filing details changes in holdings, as is routine, but no change in policy. The University has not divested from Israel. Israel was moved from the MSCI, our benchmark in emerging markets, to the EAFE index in May due to its successful growth.

Our emerging markets holdings were rebalanced accordingly. We have holdings in developed markets, including Israel, through outside managers in commingled accounts and indexes, which are not reported in the filing in question.

Without factual confirmation, proponents of the Palestinian Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign have claimed the Harvard sale as a victory, but their information was premature, erroneous, and incomplete.

Dr. Gil Feiler, founder of Info-Prod Research (Middle East) Ltd and director of the Middle East Business and Economic Research Institute at Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya told The Media Line. “They didn’t eliminate their investments in Israeli stocks,” he claimed. “They still have tens of millions of dollars invested, and if you are going to boycott Israel you sell all your stocks.”

Dr. Feiler, an expert in Israeli trade with Middle Eastern nations, argued the BDS movement, which he referred to as an ‘Arab’ boycott, is losing steam.

“The Arab boycott of Israel has no bite anymore, not economically and not in terms of perception,” he said. “They cannot even call a quorum in their meetings.”

“Israel is a huge market, buying much more than the Arab countries. The Israeli stock exchange is much bigger than a few Arab stock exchanges put together, and the Israeli GDP per capita is larger than even Saudi Arabia.”

"Israeli taekwondo fighter Gili Haimovich, 17, won a gold medal at the 2010 Summer Youth Olympics in Singapore on Sunday on a technical victory after an Iranian fighter Mohammed Soleimani refused to compete against him in the championship match.

Haimovich waited several minutes until it was clear Soleimani would not appear before beginning his victory celebration "

"the Harvard Management Company notified the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday that it had sold all its holdings in Israeli companies during the second quarter of 2010. No reason for the sale was mentioned"

Harvard apparently disapproves of the Jewish nation defending itself from attacks by the Iranian proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, but has no problem with the occupation, repression, and cultural genocide perpetrated against Tibet.

UPDATE - MONDAY AUG 16/10: It turns out this report was innaccurate. The Harvard University Fund's sale of Israeli stock was not a complete liquidation of their Israeli portfolio. They retain tens of millions in Israeli inverstments and the move was economic, not political. More here.

Christopher Fichtner is a psychiatrist and the former mental health director for the state of Illinois. In his new book, Cannabinomics: The Marijuana Policy Tipping Point, Fichtner predicts that marijuana policy is about to change radically. As Fichtner points out, three public policy trajectories converging. The medical marijuana movement is gaining momentum. People are increasingly wakening up to the fact that drug prohibition creates more public health problems than it solves. And, in the same way that the Great Depression caused people to reprioritize how we spend our public dollars, the current economic crisis has got people thinking that bringing the biggest cash crop in the US out into the open might not be such a bad idea.

From the Weekly Standard, a report of how the Khadr lawyers want to exclude video evidence showing Omar Khadr assembling and planting improvised explosive devices (IEDs) along with his al Qaeda compatriots.

"The video is certainly one of the more damning pieces of evidence against Khadr. So, it is no surprise that Khadr’s attorneys tried to have it excluded."

You can see the 60 Minutes report on Omar Khadr and the video in question here. My favourite part is when the Khadrs in Toronto talk about the appeal of the 72 virgins. This stands as an indictment of Canada's immigration policy.

Two photographs adorn the office of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Together they illuminate a portentous fact: No two leaders of democracies are less alike -- in life experiences, temperaments and political philosophies -- than Netanyahu, the former commando and fierce nationalist, and Barack Obama, the former professor and post-nationalist.

One photograph is of Theodor Herzl, born 150 years ago. Dismayed by the eruption of anti-Semitism in France during the Dreyfus Affair at the end of the 19th century, Herzl became Zionism's founding father. Long before the Holocaust, he concluded that Jews could find safety only in a national homeland.

The other photograph is of Winston Churchill, who considered himself "one of the authors" of Britain's embrace of Zionism. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 stated: "His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." Beginning in 1923, Britain would govern Palestine under a League of Nations mandate.

Netanyahu, his focus firmly on Iran, honors Churchill because he did not flinch from facts about gathering storms. Obama returned to the British Embassy in Washington the bust of Churchill that was in the Oval Office when he got there.

Here's the list just a little while before it went down. (Click it twice and you'll be able to view all the names legibly)

Thanks to Blazing Cat Fur for making the screen shot available so it can be viewed!

UPDATE 2: The humourless socialists and Islamists trying to raise funds for the Canadian Gaza boat have re-posted the list but have excised all the good names. Evidently they learned a lesson (likely amid a lot of cursing in the name of Allah, Richard Dawkins and Naomi Klein) and are now screening the suggestions before they publish them. But we still have the screen shot on the left that will live on as a reminder of the clever names they discarded. Whatever the totalitarian-minded fanatics use in the end, to me, their boat will always be The Sea Hitler.

In its relentless campaign against populist Toronto mayoral candidate Rob Ford, The Toronto Star printed an article today featuring condemnation of Ford by the unpopular outgoing incumbent, David Miller.

Ford understatedly observed to this blog last month that the Toronto Star is "not a fan" of his. The Star, which is considered to be a left-leaning, union-supporting outlet, has taken a consistently anti-Ford position, going as far as having printed demonstrably false allegations of Ford having assaulted a high school football player. Allegations the player himself refuted.

Every time The Star prints a new smear against Ford, his polling numbers climb. The Star should be less worried about the prospect of Ford as mayor as they should about their lack of influence over and total disregard by the public.

The trial of Canada's now 23 year old "child soldier" for Al Qaida has begun..

Retired Sgt. Layne Morris, who was wounded in the firefight, said Wednesday he didn't think it would be in "anybody's best interest to have Omar Khadr running around ... as a free individual gearing up for his next jihad. I haven't heard anything that would lead me to believe that [Khadr] is going to be anything other than a threat if he's released from custody," said Morris

More pictures of young Omar with his fashion accessories can be seen here.